PHILADELPHIA — Bruce Springsteen’s set of European tour dates, that he kicked off with the E Street Band in Manchester, England, on Wednesday night, is called the Land of Hope and Dreams Tour.

The name is taken from a gospel-fired song that has been a Springsteen live staple for decades. It holds fast in its belief that the American experiment is still alive, inviting all aboard a train where “dreams will not be thwarted” and “faith will be rewarded.”

Just how much the Boss’ faith is being tested in the early months of the second Trump administration was abundantly clear in a performance that, by all accounts, was the most pointed and outspokenly political of his 50-plus year career.

For starters, he opened the show by addressing the audience, an extremely rare practice for him. (The only other time I can recall that happening was Dec. 9, 1980, in Philadelphia, the day after John Lennon died.)

Here’s some of what he said at the start of the show in Manchester, as first reported by Stereogum and corroborated by audience videos:

“In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration. Tonight we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring!”

He then opened with “Land of Hope and Dreams,” which has frequently been a show closer, and played a 27-song set. He closed with a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Chimes Of Freedom,” played for the first time since 1988, and performed with the four back-up vocalists in the expanded E Street Band.

The show included two more between-song speeches critical of President Donald Trump, and several songs new to the set list since the 2024 tour.

Those included “Murder Incorporated,” which had not been performed since 2017, and the live debut of “Rainmaker,” from 2020’s "Letter To You," about a charismatic leader “who says white’s black and black’s white, says night’s day, and day’s night.”

Springsteen dedicated that song to “our Dear Leader.” Its lyrics include the lines “They come ‘cause they can’t stand the pain of another hot day of no rain … Rainmaker, take everything you have/ Some folks need to believe in something so bad, they‘ll hire a Rainmaker.” He also added a new lyric about “how easy it is to let freedom slip through your hands.”

Before an acoustic version of “House Of A Thousand Guitars,” Springsteen said: “The last check on power after the checks and balances of government have failed, are the people, you and me. It’s in the union of people around a common set of values now that’s all that stands between a democracy and authoritarianism. At the end of the day, all we’ve got is each other.”

Before “My City of Ruins,” from 2002’s post-Sept. 11 album "The Rising," Springsteen said:

“In America the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death. This is happening now.”

They are defunding American universities that won’t bow down to their ideological demands. They are removing residents off American streets and without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centers and prisons. This is all happening now."

But the Boss was not without hope.

”We’ll survive this moment," he said. “Now, I have hope, because I believe in the truth of what the great American writer James Baldwin said, he said ‘in this world there isn’t as much humanity as one would like, but there’s enough.’”

Springsteen’s comments were widely mocked and vilified on social media by Trump supporters on Wednesday night. On X, he was called “a mentally deranged idiot” a “paid propagandist,” a “moron,” and worse.

Parallels were drawn to the comments made by the band the Chicks, then known as Dixie Chicks, in London in 2003. The lead singer Natalie Maines voiced the members’ opposition to the imminent war in Iraq and said they were ashamed to share their home state of Texas with then President George W. Bush.

That resulted in the band being essentially banned by country radio.

Springsteen — who was surely aware that his message would be instantly communicated back to the U.S. — is not likely to suffer in the same way. As a longtime supporter of Democratic presidential candidates, the legions who love and hate Springsteen are already well established.

On June 27, he will release "Tracks II: The Lost Albums," a box set of unreleased music that will gather a total of seven albums of unheard music recorded between 1983 and 2018, including one called "Streets of Philadelphia Sessions." This week, he teased another, "Somewhere North of Nashville," with the song “Repo Man.”

Springsteen & the E Street Band play Manchester again on Saturday and Tuesday, continue on a tour of European stadiums through July 3 in Milan, Italy. No North American dates have been scheduled for this year.

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